I was riding the Metro North home last night after a great night with the guys from Ëko when I snapped this picture.

Doesn't he look happy to be photographed?

Notice that black square in the bottom left? The one that’s taking away from an otherwise visually pleasing advertisement? This is called a QR code.

QR codes were designed to be scanned by smart phones to give users quick access to premium content or a brand’s website in a way that is measurable. While a code like this makes sense to a computer or a smart phone, they look hideous to anyone viewing the ad. App stores and mobile browsers have evolved to the point of making such shortcuts unnecessary and outdated. An anecdote: I had a single serving friend on a flight to Buffalo once who tried to convince me of QR codes efficacy. Her employer? The yellow pages.

In my mind, nothing should take away from a brand’s eye-catching logo. When I see an ad, I want to come away with an idea of what a company’s value and vision are. That message has to stay with me; it has to inspire me to want to buy. The only thing that stayed with me here was an ugly black splotch

Have you ever scanned a QR code? Do you think they’re as ugly as I do? Do we need shortcuts like these when App environments like the App Store and Android Market exist?

Some background. Trivium’s first single, “In Waves”, is a great song. As I said before the track is solid and catchy but not different or groundbreaking. It almost sounds as though Matt Heafy listened to too much A Day to Remember. I was worried to say the least that the rest of the album would be much of the same. Enter Dusk Dismantled:

No this is definitely different. The stomping riff that dominates the song really gets my blood boiling while higher pitched guitars create an ominous mood. Heafy’s vocals sound positively possessed. A tight syncopated riff leads into flashs of brilliance that Trivium fans have come to love. I find myself legitimately terrified of this song. Bravo, Gentlemen.

I was looking at the ol’ Twitter tonight and noticed a list of people who are like me. I don’t know how Twitter determines this but after the standard alternative clothing company and the one member of The Human Abstract I don’t follow there was this gem:

Where to begin…Where do I even begin….

First. Boys, your name sucks. There is a reason I stay away from French. I can’t make the r sounds to save mon vie. I wouldn’t name my band something in French because I wouldn’t know if it made sense grammatically let alone to a real person. By the same token when you name your band Quintessence of Versatility, it just says to me, no we never actually speak English come to think of it. I get that you’re trying to say you’re capable of a great deal of things. But there’s a great deal of things I can also make fun of you for like.

Post-Deathcore

What in the burning waste is Post-Deathcore? How have you evolved the Deathcore formula past its very real and small boundaries, QoV? Did you add synths you scamps? Extended passages of ambience? Why does everything need to be hewn into smaller and in many cases, less descriptive sub-sub-subgenres? This is the Inception of metal music.

I recently logged in after a long period of inactivity, (I get bored of WordPress often) and found this in our spam comments on our contact page:

I’d like to ask questions of this bullshit diet spam website. Who or what is my God? What are rules I set forth? Am I going to hell or is Ross going to hell? This is what happens when spam bots don’t designate the antecedents to pronouns! Either my soul or Ross’ or GASP both ours could be in jeopardy and I don’t know now!

We got him. After all this time, the terrorist Osama Bin Laden, hunted for so long, has been killed by US Navy Seals. I enjoyed the patriotism and celebration that accompanied this news late last night. I am glad for the many families this brings closure to. I don’t want to politicize this victory (the pundits and the President himself have already done that in spades) but I do want to give thanks to our brave members of the armed forces and hope that soon they can come home. For Good. This will be a surreal day I’ll remember just as much as when our Italian class paused to learn the WTC had been hit 10 years ago. I’ll be happy to remember this one though.